Gps

I’ve seen a bunch of folks using Garmin Nuvis. And I’ve heard good reports about the NavSat downloadable maps of Costa Rica. They come with Points of Interest.

I used my Garmin Nuvis (three yr old) in January 2010. I have bought “Costa rica and Panama” maps from e-bay, i have inserted this little card in my Garmin and we used it with a great success.
We drove from Liberia to Guacanacuste beaches ( 3 hotels), back to Central Valley, back to Liberia. It works great! Much better then without GPS.

I am considering purchasing a Garmin handheld GPS, with topigraphical display. Can anyone provide any positives or negatives, regarding handhelds in Costa Rica? I have also read that NavSat has excellent maps, however, I am not sure how current the data is for Costa Rica.

[quote=”soldier”]I am considering purchasing a Garmin handheld GPS, with topigraphical display. Can anyone provide any positives or negatives, regarding handhelds in Costa Rica? I have also read that NavSat has excellent maps, however, I am not sure how current the data is for Costa Rica.[/quote]

I am by no means a GPS expert, but I believe you will need topo software specific to Costa Rica for any Garmin handheld. I don’t know of anything available at this time. The Navsat program is excellent for street navigation, but will not give you topo info.

At a minimum, a GPS will give you the coordinates of a specific location. Without a program, basically that is all it will do for you. You can always get a good paper map and look up the coordinates on the paper map. Primitive but workable.